Sh. Mujib’s ‘The Unfinished Memoirs’

It is ironical that some of the icons in Pakistani electronic and print media are surely polluting Pakistani society, especially the youth, with outburst of pessimistic mindset and negative images of institutions- be it the superior judiciary, the Parliament or the Armed Forces of Pakistan - which seems part of a well planned psychological warfare. It may be helpful in meeting certain covert objectives of Pakistan enemies, but highly detrimental to the integrity of the country in the long run.
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“The Unfinished Memoirs”, a book based on the diaries of Bangladesh’s ‘Bagabandu’ (father of the Bangla nation) Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has recently been published. Its launching ceremony was held in Islamabad under the auspices of the Oxford University Press and Bangladesh High Commission, in which prominent speakers like Suhrab Hossain, the High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Pakistan, M. Mijarul Quayes, Bangladesh’s Foreign Secretary, Professor Gowher Rizvi, a historian, scholar and academic who is currently the International Affairs Adviser to the Prime Minister of Bangladesh were the keynote speakers. IA Rehman, the Director Pakistan Human Rights Commission, Ameena Syed, the Managing Director of the Oxford University Press, and Hamid Mir, the eminent Pakistani journalist, also spoke on the occasion. 

The speakers certainly followed a scholastic approach, reflecting significant thoughts and observations on the contents of the publication. Mujib’s Memoirs was later reproduced in a column (The News, Nov 24) as facsimile of the script of Hamid Mir talk at the event. It is good that we are independent enough to use our right to express freely but such meetings of regional gathering demand some responsibility on our own part. Regrettably there could be no more souring a talk than the emotional outburst of the anchorperson, who in a large auditorium of the Islamabad Club that was jam-packed with guests from Bangladesh, some other countries and Pakistan, did not hesitate to arouse some of the audiences for shouting “shame, shame” virtually against Pakistan and its institutions, as the slogans followed the narration of an excerpt from one of the books of his choice. Rather he further stressed the audience to repeat the slogan of “shame” with more vigour and voice. 

Some of the audiences were however stunned over the negation of historical works of Pakistani authors, quoting the out-of-context references. If all the narrations by Pakistani writers were termed to be baseless, then why to rely on a ‘highly controversial and unsubstantiated opinion’ of a writer like Maj Gen (R) Khadim Hussain Raja, with reference to another person (Gen Niazi) who is no more alive? The book in question, posthumously published, leaves many questions unanswered regarding validity of the opinion expressed. “The Unfinished Memoirs” has reached us from Sheikh Mujib’s diaries after a few decades of his assassination. The word “unfinished” itself reflects the book to be based on partial records, and that too covering the very early years of Pakistan’s history i.e. up to 1954 only. Sumit Mitra terms it as a predicament as he wrote in the August 18, 2012 Hindustan Times: “the problem is, it is unfinished. Far from taking the story anywhere near its climax of Bangladesh’s birth, the narrative vanishes somewhere in the 1950s”. Mitra further says that “the book ends, rather abruptly, sometime after the first election in 1954 to the East Pakistan legislative assembly”. 

Bahzad Alam Khan (Dawn.com, Nov 18) writes that “Mujib seemed to have little patience with – and more crucially, little trust in – most Muslim League leaders other than Jinnah”. Such comments from Sh Mujib’s book do carry significant connotations, but were missed by the worthy speaker, who on the contrary rushed to his conclusion without narrating the whole story. The audiences however, found the talk hardly relevant with the contents and historical period that Sh Mujib’s book covered. It rather seemed more of an emotional outburst without common understanding of the historical perplexities. It would have been preferable, had the speaker also studied “Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War”, a book by Dr Sarmila Bose, a research fellow at the Oxford. It would have possibly helped avoid superfluous expressions. 

Dr Sarmila Bose comes up with startling conclusions of 1971 war. According to her, the movement for Bangladesh’s independence was hardly peaceful or Gandhian, as claimed by many. Bengalis, who were agitating for more rights and for freedom, were usually armed with weapons ranging from rifles to sickles. In other words, they were not a peaceful bunch. From March 1, 1971 when the elected national assembly was postponed till the time the Pakistani army launched Operation Searchlight on March 25, 1971, violent Bengali mobs and rebel fighters targeted Pakistani soldiers and their families and killed many. Despite this, federal troops exercised a certain degree of restraint. There were a number of massacres of Biharis which could be called genocide, especially because those killings did not discriminate between men, women and children. Did India actually take 93,000 PoWs? The total number of Pakistani soldiers in East Pakistan was only 34,000, plus another 11,000 civilian police and other armed personnel. India is right in saying it had 93,000 Pakistanis in its custody, but this figure, Bose tells us, included civilian officials, civilian staff, woman and children. 

Finally and most importantly Bose concludes that the total death toll from Bangladesh’s independence movement was neither 3 million Bengalis as claimed by Mujibur Rahman and as accepted by almost everyone outside Pakistan, nor was it as 26,000 as estimated by the Hamoodur Rehman Commission, but between 50,000 to 100,000 and in this figure, Bose includes Bengalis, Biharis, Pakistanis and Indians. (http://wpinnowed.blogsot.com/2011/12/dead-reckoning-memories-of-1971.html).

Bose further writes that there were precious few studies of the 1971 war based on dispassionate research. This is the first book-length study that reconstructs the violence of the war at the ground-level, utilising multiple memories from all sides of the conflict. Two eminent US historians, Richard Sisson and Leo Rose, published the only research-based study of the war at the diplomatic and policy level 20 years ago. Their excellent book, “War and Secession: Pakistan, India and the Creation of Bangladesh (University of California Press, 1990)”, challenged the dominant narrative, but their work does not seem to be known among the public as much as within academia. (http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth...958114219.html).

It is ironical that some of the icons in Pakistani electronic and print media are surely polluting Pakistani society, especially the youth, with outburst of pessimistic mindset and negative images of institutions – be it the superior judiciary, the Parliament or the Armed Forces of Pakistan – which seems part of a well planned psychological warfare. It may be helpful in meeting certain covert objectives of Pakistan’s enemies, but highly detrimental to the integrity of the country in the long run .
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By Sajjad Haider

Thank You For Reading

Rise of Hindu terrorism

Hindu terrorism is operative over a wide canvas covering domestic and international spectrums. India has been investing heavily in its notorious agency RAW to support insurgency, separatism, extermism and terrorism in its neighbouring states like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhuttan, Sikkim and China. A sophisticated network of RAW is working to destabilise Pakistan. On domestic side, state terrorism is ruthlessly empoyed to impede freedom movements in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, Tamil Nada, Tripura and Mizoram.

By Air Cdre (R) Khalid Iqbal

While militancy is receding in Pakistan, it is phenomenally increasing in India. Indeed it is being institutionalized in a rare public-private partnership. Pakistan’s security forces have done a commendable job to recover wide stretches of land from the jaws of terrorists. However, India is complacent about the rise of Hindu militancy directed against minorities, especially Muslims. Likewise, assaults on Christians and their property by Hindu mobs are on the rise; some gory anti-Christian incidents have taken place at various places in Andhra Pradesh, Assam Orissa and Kerala. RAW, civil and military officials, lower judiciary and fundamentalist political parties are hand in glove in promoting a strategy of militancy to cow down the minorities and pave the way for supremacy of Hindutva. Tapped conversations of infamous Col Purohit reveal the depth of such nexus, he says, “We are all on the same plane, Hindu Rashtra (Nation)”. He even claimed that General J J Singh (a former Army Chief) is “with us”. As a cover up to rise in its home grown Hindu terrorism, India spares no opportunity for tarnishing the image of Pakistan by attributing these acts to Pakistani outfits.

Peruvian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has recently discovered that European countries are being used as hot destinations by al-Qaeda to route money to India. Wikileaks have also mentioned the flow of money from Europe through Lima to India. Hindu terrorism is operative over a wide canvas covering domestic and international spectrums. India has been investing heavily in its notorious agency RAW to support insurgency, separatism, extremism and terrorism in its neighbouring states like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhuttan, Sikkim and China. A sophisticated network of RAW is working to destabilise Pakistan. On domestic side, state terrorism is ruthlessly employed to impede freedom movements in Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Mizoram.

After the last year’s politically motivated and highly biased verdict on Babri Mosque, Indian Muslims are baffled by yet another recent (mis) judgment given by a special court on the Godhra train burning incident. Ninety four people, mostly Muslims, were indicted in 2002 for their alleged role in the incident, when a compartment of Sabarmati Express was set on fire at Godhra railway station, near Ahmadabad. The trial court has convicted 31 Muslims and acquitted 63; including the 70-year old Maulana Umerji, who had been named as the chief conspirator by the Special Investigation Team. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the court accepted the conspiracy theory blaming the local Muslims for torching the bogie.

This conspiracy theory was initially floated by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, within half hour of the burning of the train; he opined that conspiracy was hatched by international terrorist network, in complicity with the local Muslims through Pakistan’s ISI. This conspiracy theory was given wide publicity and was used as a sort of justification for anti Muslim riots of Gujrat which followed the burning of train. However, at the same time, there were saner voices rejecting the conspiracy theory. Godhra collector Jayanti Ravi had ruled out the conspiracy theory. Likelihood of a conspiracy was also rejected by a judicial commission set up by former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav. This inquisition was conducted by Justice Chandra Bannerjee, and it revealed that burning of coach was accidental and it was not deliberately set on fire by a Muslim mob. Moreover, investigation by ‘Hazards Centre’, specialising in forensic investigations, also rejected the likelihood of a conspiracy by Muslims.

Mainstay of conspiracy theory has been the selling of loose petrol. There are no eye witnesses. Individuals who initially confessed of selling loose petrol could not stand the scrutiny and one of them even admitted that he was paid Rs 50,000. Kakul Pathak was one of the key prosecution witnesses. In 2007, Pathak, unaware of the fact that he was being secretly recorded, narrated that his entire testimony was a lie manufactured by the police to implicate innocent Muslims. He stated that he and eight other BJP members, who were also made witnesses like him, were not present at the scene of crime and were actually sleeping in their beds when the train was set on fire! Though Judge set aside the testimony of these nine witnesses, calling them unreliable, yet he upheld the conspiracy theory. Investigation by an Ahmadabad based Forensic Science Laboratory has established that almost 60 litres of inflammable material was poured from inside the compartment before it was set on fire. Report clearly says that the fire was started inside the coach and such a huge fire could not mushroom just with the petrol that was thrown from outside. This raises a question mark over the theory that the train was set alight by a Muslim mob that had gathered outside the train.

Ashsih Khetan in his recent investigative report for ‘Tehlka’ points out that there is no substance in the theory that it was a conspiracy by Muslims. He says that this whole theory is deceptive; it distracts attention from the truth of another conspiracy which was going on. Khetan’s investigation makes it clear that the real conspiracy was not by the Muslims. Khetan points out “That there was a conspiracy afoot in Gujarat those years is beyond doubt…It was a conspiracy by the State machinery to blacken one community’s name. And declare them the enemy.” Godhra was chosen for the climax of drama because this town has highly dense Muslim population. When the train reached Godhra railway station, all kar sevaks came out of train and started to have tea and snacks, at a small tea stall run by an old Muslim man and his young daughter. Kar sevaks beat the old man and abducted his daughter; they took her inside their compartment. As the train started to move out of the platform of Godhra railway station, two stall vendors jumped into the last bogey, pulled the chain and stopped the train. When the train stopped, a 2000 strong mob gathered around it. These people were Hindu extremists in the guise of Muslims, who apparently came for the rescue of girl but their real purpose was to throw gasoline and burning rags on the train. These people threw burning rags on the train to ignite the inflammables already placed inside the train. As a result, a huge fire broke out in the train.

Muslim community is taking the legal battle to the higher courts considering that police and lower judiciary in India, particularly in Gujarat, are well known for their communal inclinations. Earlier Malegaon, Samjhota Express and Ajmer blast were blamed on Muslims but recently an activist of RSS, Aseemanand Swami, has confessed his own and his organization’s involvement in these incidents. Soon we may hear similar version about burning of Sabarmati Express, which is up till now blamed on Muslims.

The writer is international security, current affairs analyst and a former PAF Assistant Chief of Air Staff.